Business

How to Accelerate Digital Transformation and Why

Recent global events had had a massive impact on many businesses that before lockdown occurred and working from home was the norm, were set to implement a digital transformation and move to a more efficient business model.

Even before COVID-19 began, 92% of companies believed their business models would need to change given digitisation. No moment in history has been as influential on revealing the importance of digitisation and operations upgrades as now. Those who were lucky enough to have an established framework in place or had already begun to move towards one have shown how important it was and the impact it had on efficiency, productivity and maintaining order and morale.

With many apps and software currently available for practically every sector, now is the time for CEOs, managers, and business leaders to consider critical ways in which to accelerate their digital transformation. While this is no small task and not without obstacles, it is one that must be taken going forward. The new world is one where digitisation will not only be sufficient but necessary. As such, you will want to consider different strategies to achieve your goals in the most efficient way. We have outlined a few key elements which may accelerate your digital transformation and enable your company to manage a hyper-agile market place.

Address Your Weakest Links

One of the first steps that can impact the acceleration of your business's digital transformation is to look for the areas that require the most digitisation. Auditing your business process will tell you how far along you are in the digital transformation and the key challenges that need addressing. Reviewing your model at strategic intervals will enable you to trace your digital progress, and adjust your roadmap with those that are succeeding. This may be aspects of your customer journey experience, CRM or other internal functions that impact your team's ability to perform their duties effectively.

K.I.S.S. - Keep It, Super Simple

The first leaders to wade into the digital transformation waters did so with one key hallmark in mind: simplicity. An uncomplicated process is easier to maintain, and it can still deliver all the features you need. Simplification has enabled many service providers to gain momentum in an otherwise slower marketplace, control risk and uncertainty, produce greater consistency, communicate objectives more efficiently and even develop positive morale within their teams.

Examine Your Customer Journey for Comprehensive Insights

Organisations tend to prioritise big-picture consumer experiences without studying digital or mobile customer experiences regularly. This means that while they have addressed key concerns and processes, they haven't delved deep enough into the finer points and potential technical issues that may occur. CEOs, managers, and leaders need to understand how customers' intents, reactions, and preferences are evolving to shape customer experience within digital strategies. Analysing these insights should be high on the priorities list. Whether this means your business has to alter its website UI/UX, its mobile functionality, or the way it processes its consumer data, these can impact how rapidly you identify and resolve issues.

Invest in Your Objectives

While some leaders, reasonably, view the need for a digital transformation strategy solely from a cost-based perspective, teams need ROI metrics and ways to tie innovation projects to business outcomes. Here is where your team can shine. If you are proposing a framework for your organisation's digital transformation, ensure that your more specific high-detail tasks fall under the overall objective. Prove that performing a series of smaller moves and alterations in your business process or consumer journey will ultimately be crucial to your company's overall goals. With this, ROI is always handy and using other brands within your sector as examples can go a long way.

Data is the Key to Success

If you're not sure whether to believe the market forecasts, your gut-feeling, or data, remember: numbers can't lie. While there are exceptions to every rule, data-led digital transformation strategies are the staple. The analytics will tell you everything you need to know about how your customers see your brand, how they experience it digitally, and how they compare you with the competition. Relying heavily on your data will also allow for faster decision-making, increased productivity, higher reliability and potentially even reduced costs. This is also why it's essential to have a team that not only understands how to read the data but also knows how to use it in a manner to improve your overall business model.

Don't Lose Your Brand Identity

While this may not necessarily accelerate your digital transformation, this is a critical aspect to remember. Often CEOs, managers and business leaders can be so focused on streamlining and creating an agile transformation strategy that they overlook their brand's core values. If your business is one associated with more personable core values, then be careful in how you consider newer automated aspects of your business model. While there are always ways to compliment core values with efficiency, one has to do so with a customer-orientated mindset. The same is true for your internal team. If you are introducing new frameworks, do so cautiously and run through any potential issues you feel your organisation may have. Don't merely dump an entirely new, complex workflow on your team. The result could wreak havoc on communication, productivity and even morale.

Cyber Security is Crucial

It is unfortunate, but it is a fact, that with greater digitisation comes more significant security risks. Depending on what your digital transformation strategy looks like chances are, you will be facing a higher risk of security breaches and data leaks. Cyber security is a paramount point that your business needs to focus on. Moving towards a more digital presence will mean higher volumes of consumer data, much of which will likely be highly sensitive. You need to ensure you have the software and the knowledge experts in place to deal with any potential threats.

The Brave New Digitized World

While all these changes and expenses seem like a lot right now, it's merely relative. Yes, these are expenses that, ten years ago, may not have been as vital. However, if the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it's that the global economy can change on a dime. Allocating expenses and time to different departments may be difficult now, but the real question is, can your business afford to wait? Like it or not we're going to be continuing down the path of a hyper-digital society, one that demands integration, automation and digitisation. The best course of action is to consider the long-term strategy, review the data and act with your consumer's best interests in mind.